


Still Not Whole

by thetreesgrowodd



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Awkward Sexual Situations, Bittersweet, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Incest, M/M, Missing Scene, Turtlecest, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-04
Updated: 2012-09-27
Packaged: 2017-10-11 11:41:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/112057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetreesgrowodd/pseuds/thetreesgrowodd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mike struggles to find a release for his pain and confusion following a devastating defeat by the Foot Clan. Don fixes things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place just after the arrival at the farmhouse in the 1990 movie.

Michelangelo had always liked being immersed in unfamiliar environments. Like alien planets or fantasy worlds were everything was weird and new. In books and on TV.

But now that he was in one himself, in real life, he realized that it just sucked.

He lay on the unfamiliar floor and stared at the unfamiliar ceiling and wished he could just sleep or just have everything go back to normal, anything that would end his misery.

It was too quiet for one thing. The quiet was smothering him. Except when there was sound, but that was bad too. Sometimes the house would give a shockingly loud crack — what was that anyway? Or a bird call from outside, or scurrying in the walls. Of course, this place was full of rodents, like fate was mocking him by surrounding them with rats when the only one they cared about was —

Mike flinched involuntarily and tried to find a more comfortable position.

Secondly, it smelled weird here. Mike would have said he could ignore any kind of bad smell imaginable after years of the sewer, but that was before he’d smelled this room that he and Don had to share. The bed reeked, and they’d pushed it far into the corner. As uncomfortable as the floor was, he wasn’t going anywhere near that bed. April had called the room musty and opened the window, but what they called ‘fresh air’ smelled pretty funny too.

Thirdly, and fourthly, and fifthly… everything was weird, there were humans who knew about them and were in the house with them right now, he was hungry and all he’d eaten that day were snacks and fast food April and Casey had gotten when they’d stopped for gas. And Mike ached all over. Real combat was disgusting and scenes of it kept playing back in his head. He may have trained his entire life for it, but actually doing it was different. The sensations of attacking someone with the intention of killing them… with the result of killing them…

And Raph was… And Master Spl—

He glanced at Don, beside him under the thin blanket. Asleep, for sure.

Mike reached down and pulled himself out and started stroking himself. It was familiar, it was mindless. He couldn’t switch off his pain, but pleasure was under his direct control. He closed his eyes and tipped his head back. Reality started to retreat.

A hand gripped Mike’s arm suddenly, making him jump.

“Wake up, you’re having a nightmare,” Don said, urgently.

“No, I’m not!”

“Oh. But you were…” Don paused and Mike could almost hear Don’s thought process. Mike bit his lip and hoped Don would go back to sleep and forget the whole thing. Don continued in a quieter voice, “Are you jerk— uh… touching yourself?”

Don self-censoring his phrasing sparked an irrational anger in Mike, even more than the question itself or the interruption. “Yeah,” he snapped, hotly. “Can you let me get back to it?”

“Gross.” Don turned away, body thudding sharply on the floor. “Don’t get anything on me. Or the blanket.”

Mike stared at the ceiling, hand still gripping himself but not moving, frozen mentally and physically with a jumble of emotions. His mind went someplace painful, all at once. He got up and left the room, not caring that he kicked the covers off of Don.

Half hard and half out, he walked through the dark house and out the front door. It wasn’t even locked. Long grasses brushed his calves and he swatted at little tickles that might be bugs or might be his imagination. Don had warned him about the possibility of stepping on nails out here in the thick weeds, but Mike didn’t even care. He headed for the big barn he’d seen earlier.

Behind it, he finished himself off. But it took a lot longer than it normally did. His mind kept wandering. All the things that’d happened these last few days tried to kill the mood.

What was Don’s problem anyway? After years of living in cramped quarters, with privacy a rare luxury, he’d heard all of his brothers do it. There was a sort of unspoken agreement between them. Waiting until after lights out, giving each other a reasonable amount of time to fall asleep first, not being too loud. That was enough. He’d even heard Leo and Don do it at the same time, once. Nobody cared, as long as they kept it a secret from Spl—

Well. Those days were over. Suddenly weary, he found a sheltered place to sit, leaning against the barn until the sky started to get lighter. Then he slipped back inside and finally dozed off to the sound of Don’s snores.

It was late in the day when he woke. He envied the blissful moment that characters in books always had, where they woke up someplace unusual and didn’t remember how they got there. Because he remembered everything. The weight of it hadn’t let up on him even as he slept.

Well, they would have woken him, wouldn’t they, if Raph had died in the night?

He paused, silently, at the bathroom door only long enough to get a glimpse of Raph and Leo. Both unmoving. Downstairs he found a note from Don, written on the back of a label from one of the bulging cans Don had warned him not to open and certainly not to eat. April and Casey were going to walk to town to buy food. Don was going along to help them carry it back. Expect them late in the afternoon.

Frustrated, Mike went back outside, into the barn this time. He was dizzy from not eating, but he ran through katas and trained. This was familiar at least, even without Master Spl— even alone and in a strange place, he could do this. He could close his eyes and throw himself into it.

“Mikey?”

April’s voice was soft, even timid, but Mike jumped. She took a hesitant step through the door.

“You ok?”

“Totally.” He grinned. There was no way it fooled her, but she was kind enough to not call attention to it.

“We’re back. Come eat something.”

So he followed her. The supplies they’d gotten weren’t very fancy. Of course they’d needed to get inexpensive, compact, nutritious things. What else would they have gotten? But still he felt disappointed in them.

Leo, apparently, had declined to come downstairs, so Mike, Don and the two humans ate together, which felt weird. They were quiet and looked tired and depressed, and normally Mike would try to ingratiate himself to them or make them laugh, but he hurt too much to try. So he just focused on chewing. If he focused on one thing, it was ok.

“I’m going to see what I can do with the well pump,” Don offered, after dinner. “Come with me, Mikey?”

“Nah.” It wasn’t even that he was embarrassed about the night before. He would have had to care to feel embarrassed.

He wandered back to the barn, alone, and worked out some more. Then he climbed up to the hayloft.

His foot broke through a weak board, jagged edges scraping up to his knee. He only swore out of habit, and worked his leg free with a detached perspective. It was funny, this additional pain and misfortune. Not funny in the way he usually found things funny, though. Funny in a numb way he’d just discovered.

Reasonably safe back on the ground level, he sat on the floor and tried to get the worst of the splinters out with his fingers.

“Mikey?” Don asked from the door, backlit by the evening sunlight.

Why did Don have to walk in now? After warning him about dry rot in the hayloft — and having been right — why did he have to be here to see this?

“Are you ok?” Don asked.

“Yeah, sure, just a little minor mishap with some wood,” Mike said breezily. But before he could get up and walk off, Don knelt next to him.

“Did you hurt your foot?”

No, he just had splinters in his foot. Splinters in his fucking foot.

Don grasped his ankle and peered at it, then took a pair of pliers out of his toolbox. Working quickly, he began to pull the splinters out. Embarrassed even more by Don’s gentleness and apparent lack of disgust with him, Mike lay back and studied the planks of the roof. He acknowledged Don’s suggestion that he come inside with a noncommittal grunt, and stayed behind when Don left.

After it was completely dark he went inside. April and Casey were talking in the kitchen.

“They’re just not ready to be on their own. I don’t care how mature they seem, they’re not. And I can’t… I just can’t support them,” April said. “I don’t have money saved up. I don’t even have a job. I had two and they’re both gone. In one day, both of them.”

Casey’s reply was hesitant and too low for Mikey to hear.

“I don’t think that’s very realistic,” April said. “I want to be hopeful too, but I just know better. I’ve been researching the Foot Clan…”

Mike hurried on to his room then. He didn’t want to hear this. He hoped Don would be asleep already, but he heard hammering coming from their room. He opened the door and found Don on his hands and knees, nailing a scrap piece of wood over the rodent holes in the gnawed baseboard by the light of a candle.

Wordlessly, Mike shut the door and crawled under the blanket, stiff and sore from his over-zealous training. He closed his eyes but listened closely to Don’s movements. Don wrapped up what he was doing and got under the blanket too. A second later, he blew out the candle.

“Goodnight,” Don said, quietly.

“I won’t jerk off on you tonight, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Mike said, bitterness coming out in an unexpected rush.

There was a stunned silence. Mike waited for Don to bite his head off. He deserved it. Instead, Don said, “Let’s not fight, Mikey. I’m sorry for what I said. I didn’t mean to make a big deal out of it.”

Mike turned toward Don. There was a little light coming in the window, but he couldn't see the expression on Don’s face. They’d always been the closest, the two of them. Don had always been his best friend.

“Things are rough for all of us. You should do whatever you can to relax. Even that,” Don whispered.

“I’ll do it if you do it,” Mike said, half joking.

“Ok,” Don said, and Mike heard him shifting, moving his hand.

Mike pulled himself out and gave himself a few automatic strokes, unable to kick a sense of unreality. “Are you really doing it?” he demanded.

“Yeah.”

“Really?” Mike grabbed Don’s arm and slid down it, over his hand and onto his cock. Don made a surprised noise and pulled his hands away. Mike gripped him. He’d never done anything like this before. He felt a thrill. The day’s pain fell away under his thundering heart, his sense of vertigo, his disbelief at his own actions.

Don’s cock was stiffening up quickly, and felt warm and slightly damp, a lot like his own, but different. Kind of like when Mike was little and used to lie in bed and hold himself, just because it felt reassuring. He’d listen to the normal sounds of the city and his brothers snoring, sounds from the next room, Master Splinter humming to himself, turning pages in books —

He moved his hand, pumped Don’s cock. His own jumped and touched his wrist. Don let out a few gasping, disbelieving noises, then clamped both hands over his. “Wait.”

“I’ll stop,” Mike said immediately. Caught doing something wrong, something which he knew was wrong.

“It just feels weird,” Don said, but kept Mike’s hand there.

“It’s ok, I’ll stop,” Mike offered again, and listened to his own heartbeat throbbing in his ears while he waited for Don’s reply. He’d pushed the boundary and pushed the boundary and knew he’d gone too far, but for a moment it had been so exhilarating, so mindlessly relieving.

“No,” Don breathed at last, releasing Mike’s hand like it was fragile. “You don’t have to stop. Unless you want to.”

Mike stroked lightly, and Don was almost deathly quiet next to him. The situation felt nicely absurd and unrealistic. He was jerking his brother off. How fucked up was that? With Leo watching Raph die in the bathroom. With two humans they barely knew talking about what a burden they were now that Splinter was dea—

It was time to do this thing right, Mike decided. He grasped the far edge of Don’s plastron in both hands and forced him to roll onto his side, facing Mike. He caught Don’s cock, bobbing against his own, and jerked it in a steady rhythm. Don couldn’t stay still. He moved his hands around nervously, to brush over Mike’s hand, to brace himself up, to grope for Mike’s cock and stroke it a few times before letting go awkwardly. He made little noises in the back of his throat. Mike’s arm started to tire and he wondered what would happen if Don never came. Then he wondered what he would do when Don did.

But he never found out. Don gasped and suddenly pushed Mike’s hands away, and flipped over to face away. Not understanding, Mike scooted forward, reaching over Don to finish what he’d started. The movement made Mike’s cock nudge its way up the back of Don’s thighs and the tip slipped under his shell. Don jumped up.

“Don?” Mike asked.

Don left the room, closing the door firmly behind him. Mike stared into the darkness feeling empty. Time passed with no meaning and only the pure exhaustion of his hours of training got him to sleep.

It was still dark, hours later, when Don shook Mike lightly out of his sleep.

Startled, Mike could only think of one reason he’d be shaken awake. “What — is it Raph?” he gasped, adrenaline surging through him.

“No.”

“Is it Raph?” he demanded again.

“No. Not Raph,” Don told him firmly.

Mike fell back onto the old pillow and felt Don sit cross legged next to him. He didn’t want to face Don now, not after everything.

“Mikey,” Don stroked Mike’s forehead. “About earlier. We should— I shouldn’t have—”

“Donnie. I want to go home,” Mike said. The sudden admission of homesickness was too much and his throat closed up painfully. He scrambled to his knees and leaned forward against Don’s plastron, not sure if he wanted to wail or throw up or scream, as long as he got some kind of release. Don wrapped his arms around Mike, too hard, and let out his own ragged cry of suppressed pain, his chin and open mouth falling against the top of Mike’s head. And everything was wrong, everything, and to his dismay Don was just as lost and in pain and frightfully young as he was.

Mike clung to him, his hands balling into fists against Don’s shell over and over, fingernails scraping over the ridges. Don whispered in a choked voice that it wasn’t fair, wasn’t fair, and his arms contracted crushingly around Mike. Even Don didn’t know how to make things right.

Eventually, fatigue and soreness pulled them down and they lay together on their sides. On and off, they spoke in stilted whispers about the recent upheavals in their life and dozed lightly.

“Just so you know,” Don whispered, toward dawn, “even if he wakes up… Raph — as we know him — is almost certainly gone. Head injuries that severe…”

Mike nodded mutely against Don’s chin. He had known that. He had also unconsciously worked out the fact that with Raph-as-we-know-him gone, Leo-as-we-know-him would basically be gone. Leo’s life functioned in such intertwined ways with both Raph and Splinter that he was certain to be different from now on. Mike closed his eyes and fresh hot tears slid down his face, but quietly this time. Splinter was certainly gone, too. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Don cradled the back of Mike’s head with one hand, and his breathing grew slow and steady, a warm, damp, comforting spot that came and went rhythmically on Mike’s forehead. Mike listened to him breathe, and as it got lighter, studied the lines of his neck, the subtle play of yellows and ambers in his brother’s plastron.

Don. Don was here. There was some kind of a future open to them, even if they never repeated the closeness they’d had that night.

With Don, he could rebuild a world.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raphael fantasizes about two things while he recovers: sex and revenge.

That Casey Jones guy was here. From what the others had told him, Raph owed him a big 'Thank you.' But Raph wasn't the type to thank people, and Casey wasn't the type to stand still and let someone thank him, so Raph didn't give it a second thought.  
  
His life had just gone to hell, his home had been destroyed, he'd nearly been killed, and they'd made a life-long vendetta with the most powerful criminal organization in their hometown. Splinter was certainly dead. Even if he were alive, he was so far beyond their reach he might as well be on the moon. Raph couldn't even bring himself to ask how many days he'd been unconscious to try and calculate the chances of Splinter being alive.  
  
So he focused on something else while he recovered. Like what was going on between Casey and April. Raph (who thought he had a pretty solid understanding of humans from all the TV he'd watched in his life) saw the signs of it, but he had never been around it before. Sexuality. At least, aside from what he and his brothers did to take care of themselves.  
  
Raph rested and Leo hovered. In the rare times he wasn't in their room — Raph and Leo were sharing the room closest to the bathroom since Raph couldn't walk without help yet — he seemed to materialize in an instant if Raph moved or made a sound. It gave Raph a headache — or, more accurately, intensified the headache he had all the time — but telling Leo off for it would take too much energy. Besides, despite all the time they spent together, they hardly talked.  
  
Don and Mike weren't around much, but whenever they came in to see him, or even walked by in the hall, they were together. They'd always been close, but now there was a kind of gulf, with them on one side and Leo and Raph on the other. Not in a cold or exclusive way — no, they were just set apart. But the two of them coaxed Leo to get out of the house to train with them, or to meditate, or to help April and Casey carry things back from town, and Raph was grateful for the privacy.  
  
Raph wasn't sleeping much anymore, but his body demanded constant rest. He spent whole days lying in bed or on the couch if someone helped him downstairs. It was messed up, but he mostly wondered if Casey and April were going at it, or if they would soon. He was passively jealous. He'd saved her life single-handedly, and besides, the two of them never would have even met if it hadn't been for him. But he sat and watched and listened because there was nothing else to do. He recognized the stark, male sexuality oozing off of Casey when April was around. He saw how she pushed her hair out of her face when he walked into a room and jiggled her foot when he spoke. He couldn't think about anything else.  
  
No, there was one other thing he thought about, in the dead of the night when Leo snored softly in the next bed — how Raph could get back to New York and make the Foot pay. Even if his injuries proved to be permanently debilitating, he'd limp his way right in there and take out as many of them as he could before he was killed. Even if he were a mouse facing a lion. He'd go in undaunted and brave.  
  
But for now he felt like an awkward little boy. His thoughts of April — and he'd had them, not just now but that first night in her apartment too — were pathetic, immature little fantasies.  
  
It didn't help when Casey came into the room one morning where Raph lay, too weak to move, squeezed his foot through the blanket, whispered, "Heya pal. For you," and dropped a yellowed, old fashioned porno magazine he'd found in some out of the way corner of the house onto the bed, before winking and leaving. Prick. Or was he genuinely trying to be friendly?  
  
By sheer force of will, Raph got out of bed that day and down to the front door, leaning on walls and furniture, until he collapsed on the porch swing. He could hear his brothers training in the distance. When they headed inside later, they found him there, dozing. They forced him to go back to bed, and their smell of sweat and earth and plants lingered on his skin.  
  
He woke another day to find a bottle of Pepsi and a Milky Way by his bed, luxuries brought back from one of the grocery treks. He stared at them. No one was at his bedside weeping for joy at his recovery, but they expressed themselves all the same.  
  
Things started to turn around, day by day. The others stopped whispering around him or talking about his health in the hall as if he couldn't hear them, and sometimes even spoke to him like he was an individual again. Raph crawled, he walked, and when he stumbled he got up and ran. He didn't like to show how weak he was, especially to Leo, so he pushed himself hard. Too hard. Until he couldn't do any more and even needed to be carried back to the house once, which made him feel weaker than if he'd never gotten out of bed. But it was proof that he wouldn't just take shit from life complacently. He'd fight to get back what he'd lost.  
  
Everything he'd lost.  
  
*  
  
"You know about this Foot Clan," Raph said.  
  
April looked up in surprise. She had been sketching. From where Raph stood, it looked like the tree line outside the window with a sky full of impossible, cartoony stars and lacy doodles. "What?" she asked, a million miles away. When Raph was silent, she processed his words. "Oh, the Foot… I've done some research, yes."  
  
"Would they keep Splinter alive?"  
  
She rubbed her nose and put her pencil down and didn't make eye contact with him.  
  
"Well?" he asked heatedly and immediately regretted it. He had learned to read her expressions, and she was shutting down. "Sorry," he whispered. "I just want to know. Nobody will talk about it, not at all."  
  
She sighed and closed her eyes and spoke toward him. "I had reason to suspect they took out a few enemies in the past. There were fishy deaths of a few individuals who were in positions to cause complications for them. But then, they warned me off rather than kill me. At least, I don't think their intention was to kill me… the the first time."  
  
She met his eyes. He'd been there, in the subway, he'd heard it all. He'd carried her home, just like his brothers had carried him here. He nodded slightly.  
  
"I don't really understand why they took him instead of just... I'm so sorry, Raph. I think it would take a miracle for..."  
  
The floorboards creaked — that was one thing about this place, it was impossible to not hear someone coming — and Raph looked up to see Casey walking in as if he didn't have a care in the world. "Look who's up," Casey said with his shit-eating grin. "You're looking better. You know, for a turtle and all. Don't forget, you owe me one."  
  
"I owe you a lot," Raph said mock-threateningly, holding up his fist. Because that was what they expected. Despite himself, and all rational thought, Casey was growing on him.  
  
*  
  
"You're doing great," Leo said. The two were out jogging, struggling to rebuild Raph's stamina. They'd just stopped for a breather under some trees, near a clearing they used for sparring. Raph was gasping for air and Leo wasn't even breathing fast.  
  
Raph glared at him. He hadn't asked Leo to evaluate him, and he certainly hadn't asked Leo to sugarcoat things. "Tell me the truth," Raph said.  
  
Leo's vague smile faded. He considered his answer for a moment. "You're still very weak. You move slowly, but are quickly tired out. But you're improving." Leo busied himself, slipping off his mask and picking at the knot. "None of us have any experience with injuries like yours so we didn't really know what to expect, but Raph, you're doing far better than we could have hoped for."  
  
"You thought I'd be a vegetable."  
  
Leo put his mask back on and adjusted it, still not looking at Raph. "We didn't know."  
  
Raph stood still, taking it in. Leo sat down on the ground and picked up a bottle of water. He took a sip and held it out. Raph took it and sat with Leo. The sun was setting, but neither suggested they go in. They'd had an early dinner and come out here with the intention of doing some training in the dark. It was much easier at home, where full darkness could be achieved by only turning off a lamp or blowing out a candle. Here you had to wait for nature to do it for you. In all their years underground they'd had to fight for light, and now they were waiting for darkness.  
  
"Don says they got the old truck running."  
  
Raph froze with the bottle halfway to his mouth. "What's the plan?"  
  
"It's up to April and Casey." Leo lay down and stretched. "When they're ready. They have things to go back to."  
  
That phrase irritated Raph. "So we have nothing to go back to?" he asked, hotly.  
  
Leo sat up again and took a deep breath. "I didn't say that we don't. But it's complicated. Dangerous."  
  
Raph grunted and put the bottle down. The last rays of the evening sun were very orange.  
  
"If you guys want, we can stay here," Leo offered. "I haven't really brought it up yet because I wanted to let everyone have time to rest. But think it over, Raph. I bet April would be happy to let us. The house has fallen into such disrepair, we could fix it up and maintain it for her in exchange for—"  
  
"I'm going back," Raph said.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"I thought you'd say that. There's not much to do here, is there?" Leo drew his knees up.  
  
"Slow death by boredom here or quick death by Foot there. I know which one I want," Raph said boldly and waited for Leo to argue.  
  
Leo dropped his forehead to his knees. "Me too," he admitted.  
  
"What?"  
  
"The temptation of confronting the Foot... I could put it out of my mind before, but now that you're up and we have a way to get back... I'm afraid I'll do something reckless. I know I will..."  
  
Raph sat up straight. "O-ho! What a surprise. This from Leonardo, the lionhearted—"  
  
"Stop. Forget I said it. Of course you'd take it all wrong." Leo stood up, but Raph caught his wrist.  
  
"Nuh-uh. You don't get to drop a bombshell and walk away. Tell me what you're thinking. What's your plan?"  
  
"I wasn't storming off. I was just stretching." Leo pulled his wrist away. Raph's grip was weak, and it frustrated him. "Storming off is your department."  
  
"Talk to me, Leo. Consider it a last request from a dying turtle."  
  
"You're not dying."  
  
"Anymore. But I was. And believe me, whatever you're thinking about doing to the Foot, I've thought it already."  
  
Leo sat down again. It was full twilight now and crickets were starting to chirp, and a breeze stirred the plants around them.  
  
"What I really want is to try to take the Foot down," Leo said. "Not as revenge. Just because they're dangerous and they're messing with people who haven't done anything wrong."  
  
"You tasted your first blood, and now you want more."  
  
Leo glared at him. "What does that even mean?"  
  
"You called it 'our first battle', but that fight when we saved April from those guys was nothing. That was like pushing down some kids in a playground. I had my first real fight on the roof. You had yours while I was out cold. Dammit, why'd I have to miss it?"  
  
"And so, in your mind, I want to take down the Foot, not because they're evil, but because of some bloodlust that awakened when I killed… I killed…"  
  
"You killed." Raph's teeth gleamed in the darkness. "I knew it."  
  
"It was in defense."  
  
"I wanted to be there to see it."  
  
"You're sicker than I thought."  
  
Raph shrugged. "We trained our whole lives to kill, and those guys fucking deserved it if you hadn't noticed. Of course I wanted to see it. To see you live up to that great potential of yours."  
  
Leo shook his head. "Forget this, I'm going inside. You could at least try to be grateful that I killed to save you. After all, you started the whole thing. You led them back to our lair."  
  
Leo's words hung in the air for a silent moment.  
  
Raph lunged at him. Leo twisted around somehow so that Raph hit the ground with Leo on top of him. "Raph," Leo growled as Raph struggled, but Leo had him pinned. He was in an awkward position, straddling Raph's neck, his weight across Raph's shoulders, his plastron bumping Raph's mouth. Leo eased his weight to the side, getting up  
  
Lightning fast, Raph swept Leo's feet out from under him, and Leo fell, half on top of Raph. It was a cheap move, the kind Master Splinter disliked. Sloppy, provoking, unnecessary.  
  
A dam broke. Leo reacted in fury. He flipped around and their plastrons hit together hard. He pinned Raph more securely this time, but Raph thrashed and fought back. Both forgot technique — it didn't matter now, only movement and release did. They wrestled in the darkness in a frenzy of dirty fighting, dragging in handfuls of earth, dry leaves and sticks, gasping for breath, dripping sweat, grappling until they had friction burns. Time got away. Then the fever broke all at once and no one had won or lost. They lay panting in the dirt. Raph was exhausted, but for the first time since his injuries, it felt good.  
  
Night had fallen now. A few stars showed through the thick canopy of the trees above them, along with a shockingly bright speck of the moon. The sweat on Raph's skin cooled before Leo spoke. "We go back," Leo said in a low voice. "We make sure that Mike and Don are ok, that they can get by without us, that they won't follow us. Then we go in and we find out what they did to Master Splinter, and we take out as many of them as we can before…" Leo trailed off.  
  
"You really want to die?"  
  
"Do you?"  
  
"Don and Mike will come after us. No matter what."  
  
Leo sat up, rustling leaves and cracking twigs. "I know."  
  
Raph reached up and grasped the upper edge of Leo's shell and used it to pull himself up to a sitting position. His overtaxed muscles cramped and he slumped forward against his brother, breathing deep and hard with the pain. Leo grasped his shoulder, and they sat together vowing an unspoken oath. They wouldn't risk Mike and Don. They wouldn't hurt them by throwing their lives away. They longed for revenge, but they loved their brothers more.  
  
From that day on, Raph nursed a dark fantasy of himself and Leo confronting the entire Foot Clan. A righteous, fatal, final attack that some dark part of their hearts reveled in. A world with just the two of them, together.


End file.
